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Monthly Archives: October 2015

Enterprises can save millions (billions?) by analyzing and responding appropriately to the usage data provided by connected devices—HVAC, power meters, appliances, manufacturing equipment. Yes, we are talking about “IoT”, the Internet of Things, one of the hottest topics in tech news. The savings for large businesses are already being realized.

But is IoT really a big benefit for Jake and LaTeisha Consumer? So far folks, the evidence says otherwise. IoT as a matter of convenience for the consumer—when it runs out, order your detergent immediately from Amazon by pushing a button on your washer; change your thermostat, turn off your lights, shut your drapes from an app or web browser because you are going to be away—yes. Practical and convenient applications of the technology to the life of the consumer sells to the consumer, but analysis of the data? Who is really going to do that? Who benefits?

Once again, the more you give away your privacy, the more you push your life into the cloud, the more the marketing mavens can target sales to you. To your house. To your car. To your power meter. To your refrigerator. Just think, you run out of olives and Samsung sends you a private tweet when you drive by the supermarket. Your refrigerator and auto manufacturer, supermarket, Twitter, and who-knows-who-else get to “help” you. The technology is here NOW to do that. It’s just a matter of time.

You gotta love this. It’s a problem for customers, but cloud vendors love it. You move your data, maybe even your apps, and probably outsource most of your administration activities (making a big chunk of your IT team “redundant”). The corporation achieves the dream of freeing itself from IT and making infrastructure a utility service. But then, the Cloud or Hosting vendor doesn’t meet SLAs, you don’t have the in-house talent to challenge them when they use technical excuses for long delays or missing capability. And you are stuck. Locked in. They call it “The Hotel California Effect”. Now what? Anyone with experience moving from one hosting service to another knows it can get real ugly real fast.

Wal-Mart may open-source tools that make such moves easier. Hop from one “cloud” to the next. And I’ll thank the Counting Crows and call that, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby“, to wit: “…You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast.“

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